The ability of a wireless device to communicate with a variety of access nodes is a vital function of a wireless communication system. A wireless device can be instructed to change from communicating with a first access node to communicating with a second access node for a variety of reasons. For example, based on the mobility of the wireless device, the communication system may determine to perform a handover of the wireless device to a new access node. As another example, an access node may perform a load balancing operation or a similar function and may perform a handover of the wireless device to another access node, for example, for purposes of load equalization, inter-frequency offloading, intra-frequency offloading, and the like. Typically, the performance of a handover is triggered at least in part due to load conditions at an access node, as well as received signal levels of access nodes at the wireless device.